THE MYSTERY OF THE MAROON CAR
Dan Speedwell was completely taken aback by this statement of the deputy
sheriff. He knew that Mr. Polk must have surety for his words. The men
in the maroon automobile were well known and perfectly responsible
citizens.
Indeed, as Dan wheeled his motorcycle nearer to the car he saw that the
two in the tonneau of the auto were much different-looking individuals
from those he expected to find. The men who had wrecked Maxey Solomons’
auto, and perhaps killed the young man himself, would certainly not
possess the personal appearance of these gentlemen!
Mr. Briggs Dan knew by reputation. He was the most enthusiastic motorist
in Crandall County. The thousand mile endurance test which he had
suggested, and to the winner of which he had promised a gold cup,
interested Dan and Billy Speedwell not a little, although they owned no
automobile, and at this time had no immediate expectation of getting a
car.
“What does the young man want, Polk?” inquired Mr. Armitage, a
gray-mustached man with a ruddy face and pleasant smile. “He asked us to
stop; didn’t he?”
“There’s a mistake been made somewhere, Mr. Armitage,” declared the
deputy sheriff, with some hesitation. “Dan is a good boy, and
trustworthy. But it seems he has been following you and Mr. Briggs on
his motorcycle——”
“What for?” asked the gentleman, quickly.
“Because of something that happened up the road. He says that the
automobile he followed wrecked another machine and hurt the driver.”
“Our auto?” cried Mr. Armitage.
“Why, Dan says it was a maroon car, like yours, and that it came direct
from Riverdale.”
“By which road?” asked Mr. Briggs, quickly.
“The river road,” said Dan. “I was sure I had followed the right
car—there was no other all the way.”
“But we did not come to the Falls that way,” said Mr. Briggs. “We
traveled by the pike, and we stopped at Mr. Maury’s place for some
minutes.”
“Oh, I know it could not have been your machine,” said Dan, hastily.
“The men who ran down Maxey Solomons have escaped by some means. They
must have taken a cross road toward the other side of the county.”
“You did not get their number?”
Dan quickly related the incidents which had brought him to this place,
and in such haste. The gentlemen in the car were sympathetic and
interested.
“Come!” said, Mr. Armitage, “this matter must be looked into. The
rascals should be apprehended. They are getting farther and farther away
each minute, it is likely. Come, Briggs, what do you say? You have been
bragging about the speed of this car. Let’s see what Henri can get out
of her.”
“I am with you, Armitage,” declared his friend. “Hop aboard, Polk. You
are a county officer. Those men must be arrested, if possible, and held
until we learn what damage they have done.”
“I’ll go with you, Mr. Briggs,” said the deputy.
He leaped into the tonneau. Mr. Armitage looked at Dan, who stood by his
motorcycle.
“The boy had better go with us,” said Mr. Armitage. “He is evidently an
observant lad, and he will not be likely to make a second mistake in the
automobile.”
“Yes! let the boy come,” said Mr. Briggs. “If he was a witness to the
accident he speaks of, we will need his testimony if we overtake the
guilty ones.”
“But my machine?” said Dan, doubtfully.
“Lift it right up here,” commanded Mr. Briggs. “We’ll fasten it on the
running board. Then, young man, you get in beside Henri, and we’ll be
off.”
Dan was quick to obey these suggestions. His Flying Feather he stood
upright on the running board of the car, and he saw that it was fastened
securely. In five minutes they were off, after Mr. Polk left word at the
sheriff’s office for the officers to watch for the mysterious car and
its three occupants.
The auto dashed off along the pike toward Riverdale. There were three
cross roads that the offenders against law might have taken, as long as
they did not complete their run to Upton Falls. But there were by-roads,
too, on which they might have hidden and the deputy sheriff advised
stopping to inquire at every farmhouse, and of every teamster whom they
met. It was some time, however, ere they picked up the trail of the
maroon car, and then they obtained the clue in quite a strange way.
As they came to the lane leading up to a barn, the farmer came running
out with a pitch fork in his hand. Before Mr. Polk could speak, the man
demanded:
“Ye got ’em, hev ye, Sheriff? Wa’al I’m glad of it! I’ll go right down
with ye t’ th’ ’squire’s office, an’ I guess, he’ll make ’em pay a
pretty price for their fun. That calf of mine run int’ a barbed wire
fence an’ tore herself all up——”
“Hold on, Mr. Jackson!” exclaimed the deputy. “You’re getting your dates
mixed, I guess. These gentlemen certainly have done you no harm.”
“No harm!” yelled the farmer. “When they come up through the Indian
Bridge road not an hour ago, they skeered my heifer into a conniption
fit, and come pretty nigh runnin’ over _me_ when I come out at ’em.”
“Not _these_ gentlemen,” said Polk. “I can vouch for them. One is Mr.
Thomas Armitage, whom you ought to know, Jackson.”
“I swan!” exclaimed the farmer. “I voted for him for Congress.”
“Much obliged to you, I am sure,” said Mr. Armitage. “And I hope that
you will not think I so illy deserved your vote as to race an automobile
through these roads to the endangering of life and limb of good
citizens.”
“Wa’al!” ejaculated the puzzled Mr. Jackson, “it was a car jest the same
color as yours, Mr. Armitage.”
“And how many men were in it, Mr. Jackson?” interposed Polk.
“Come to think on’t, there warn’t but three,” admitted the farmer.
“Did you see the license number?”
“Not much! They went so quick I couldn’t see much but the color of the
car.”
“And in which direction did they disappear?” asked the deputy.
The farmer pointed up the side road, away from the river.
“They are making for the railroad,” declared Mr. Briggs, in some
excitement. “Drive ahead, Henri.”
They came to the railroad—the Barnegat & Montrose Branch of the R., V. &
D.—and halted long enough to speak to the flagman. He had seen the
flying car, too. They were on the right track.
But a mile beyond the pursuing party came to a place where the highway
branched in three directions. There was no house in sight. The escaping
car might have taken any one of the roads.
“We’re stuck!” ejaculated Mr. Polk. “We might as well take one at random
and see if we can run down a clue upon it.”
“Wait!” urged Dan Speedwell. “Perhaps I can do better than that.”
He got out of the machine and ran into the first road at the right. He
had noticed that these highways here were not so well made as those
nearer the river. There was a chance that he might find some trace of
the passing of the strange car which they followed.
And he was right in this surmise, although he did not find it in this
first road. Marks of the tires of an automobile—and fresh marks—were
visible in the middle road. As far as Dan could see no other machine had
passed this way.
He leaped back beside the chauffeur and they drove on again at top
speed. A mile beyond they halted at a farm house to inquire. The passing
of an automobile in a cloud of dust had been noticed less than an hour
before; but the sight was too common to have attracted much attention,
and the occupants of the house had been too far from the road to note
the color of the machine, or the number of men in it.
Mr. Briggs’ car was certainly fast, and Mr. Briggs’ chauffeur was the
most marvelous manipulator of an automobile that Dan Speedwell had ever
seen. And to sit directly beside the Frenchman and observe the skill and
art with which he handled the levers and the wheel was a sheer delight
to the boy.
He thought to himself:
“Ah! if Billy and I only owned an auto! If we could only take part in
this endurance test that Mr. Briggs is going to arrange! If we could
handle an auto half as well as this Frenchman!”
But the boy’s thoughts were disturbed suddenly by Mr. Polk, who
remarked:
“It looks to me as though these fellows were aiming for Port Luther, or
even Cadenz. Unless they turn back toward Riverdale and Compton they
will be obliged to strike some of the coast towns.”
“Quite right, Polk,” admitted Mr. Armitage.
“Then, here is Landers Station just ahead. There is a train coming down
now. I’ll take that train and go on. The railroad is more direct than
the highways and I may be able to head those fellows off at Port
Luther.”
“And we stick to the trail in the car, Polk!” agreed the gentleman.
“What do you say, Briggs?”
“It suits me. Henri, shall I take your place for a while?” Mr. Briggs
asked his chauffeur.
“The young man here will change with me, Monsieur,” returned the kindly
Frenchman, who had seen how eagerly interested Dan was in the management
of the automobile.
And when they halted at the railroad station to allow the deputy sheriff
to take the train, the chauffeur did indeed change places with Dan
Speedwell. Once at the wheel the youth proved that Henri had not been
mistaken in him. For a lad of sixteen Dan handled the car with great
dexterity.
The maroon car was out of sight of the station before the train bearing
the deputy was on its way again; but the automobilists were obliged to
halt frequently to inquire for the motor car of which they were in
pursuit. And there were more autos than one ahead of them now. Sometimes
they lost the trail of the maroon car completely; but when they reached
the lively little town of Larned they learned that the fugitives had
halted at the local garage for gasoline, and that they had left, still
following the road toward the coast, but at a moderate pace.
“Half an hour behind them—or thereabout,” exclaimed Mr. Armitage, with
satisfaction. “We should be able to pick that up.”
But even as they started from the garage they met with an accident. A
forward tire blew out and the car came down with a solid bump on the
roadway.
“Now!” cried Mr. Armitage. “Look at this delay! Isn’t it abominable?”
But Mr. Briggs was a man of quick thought. He was observant, too. He
spoke to the owner of the garage. There was a good car standing on the
floor and it was for hire. In two minutes it had been run out, Henri was
at the wheel, and Mr. Armitage and Mr. Briggs in the tonneau of the
hired machine.
Dan had expressed his desire to return to Riverdale. It would soon be
night, and he and Billy had many chores to do. They were now thirty
miles from home, and the boy feared to go farther without permission
from his parents.
“And quite right,” Mr. Armitage said. “But hold yourself ready
to-morrow, my boy, if we have the good fortune to overtake those fellows
in the maroon car. We shall need you for a witness.”
Dan promised and Mr. Briggs, who had consulted with Henri for a moment,
said:
“My chauffeur tells me that you are quite able to run our car back to
Holliday’s garage at Riverdale. This man here will put on a new tire and
you can get back to town easier in my car than on your machine. Do you
want to do me that favor?”
Dan’s sparkling eyes and flushed face replied for him before his lips
could form the words. It was so decided, and the others got off quickly
in the hired auto. Within the hour Dan started the beautiful touring car
on the back track, delighted with his charge, and looking forward to
nothing more than a pleasant run over familiar roads to his home town.
It was growing dusk, however, long before he reached Riverdale. Indeed
he was all of ten miles from the town when he stopped to light his
lamps. Before he started the auto again he observed another car bearing
down upon him from ahead, its lights blazing in the dusk.
Dan had pulled out to the side of the road and apprehended no danger.
But the coming car was braked quickly when a few rods from him, and its
driver brought it to a complete stop beside Mr. Briggs’ vehicle.
One of the four men in the machine leaped out and, to Dan’s amazement,
stepped into the front of the maroon car beside him.
“Hold up your hands!” commanded this man, in excited tones. “We’ve got
_you_, at least, if your pals have escaped. Hold up your hands!”
Dan shrank back and demanded a reason for threatening him in this savage
way.
“You know what I want,” said the man. “You are in the hands of the law.
I arrest you, for the robbery of the Farmers’ National Bank at
Riverdale!”